Published: Monday, April 1, 2013 at 3:21 p.m.

Last Modified: Monday, April 1, 2013 at 3:21 p.m.

Ever since the Tampa Bay Rays made it to the World Series in 2008, they have been admired as one of professional baseball's best teams — quite an achievement for a low-salary club that for years occupied the basement of their division.

But no matter how many games the Rays win, they just cannot seem to translate their on-field prowess into love at the turnstiles.

Case in point: When the Rays face off against the Baltimore Orioles in their season-opener at Tropicana Field on Tuesday, it is likely that the St. Petersburg stadium — the team's home for the past 15 years and one named for Bradenton's Tropicana Products Inc. — will be packed with fans.

But if history is any guide, by the time the ever-popular New York Yankees end their swing into the Trop on April 24 — and all the Joe Maddon gnomes are given away as a promotion — Rays' attendance will slide like a baserunner attempting a suicide squeeze.

It is not a tough prediction to make.

The Rays, which expanded a relationship with Southwest Florida by moving spring training to Charlotte County five years ago, came in dead last in Major League Baseball ticket sales in 2012.

To boost attendance, team owner Stuart Sternberg contends that the Rays need a new stadium — and likely a new location.

But new digs, like the retractable-dome stadium that is now home to the Miami Marlins, would cost around $550 million. The Rays have stated they would be willing to contribute $150 million for the right site.

If or when a stadium shift occurs, it could have widespread ramifications for Southwest Florida Rays' fans, who would likely have to travel farther north on Interstate 75 to see the sort-of hometown team play.

The stadium debate may soon come to a head because Tropicana Field construction bonds are set to be paid off by 2015. When that happens, it will free up millions of dollars annually in Pinellas County bed taxes for other projects, including a proposed $160 million home for the Clearwater Marine Aquarium.

“There's going to be a whole line of open palms for that money,” said Kevin Reichard, publisher of Ballpark Digest, a Madison, Wis.-based website founded in 2002.

As the debate rages to the north, however, even local die-hard fans acknowledge the need for a team move.

Randy Etzkorn, owner of the Venice Avenue Creamery in downtown Venice, manages to get to more than of half of the Rays' 81 home games at The Trop each year.

“Their location, even though I like it, I think they rank last in the majors in terms of how many people live within a 30-minute drive to the stadium,” Etzkorn said. “So they are the least accessible of any major league team.”

Reichard and others maintain, meanwhile, that a better-located ballpark would generate enough tax revenue to make the public investment feasible.

“There are many factors that challenge the leadership of the Rays and the region,” said Mark Rosentraub, professor of sports management at the University of Michigan. “What is clear, however, is that without a new facility incorporated into an urban plan that attracts people to a destination site, attendance levels will not improve.”

Deadline looms

Tropicana Field was built — speculatively — to house a baseball team by a coalition of local governments using the “Field of Dreams” theory: If you build it, they will come.

The indoor stadium opened in 1990 as the Florida Suncoast Dome. It sat empty for five years, until Major League Baseball executed a long-awaited expansion plan.

In 1996, Tropicana — contemplating a break from its then-owner Seagram Co. to become a standalone company — stepped forward with a purported $46 million to rename the domed stadium Tropicana Field.

The first game at Tropicana Field — the team was known as the Devil Rays at the time — occurred in March 1998. In an inauspicious debut, the team lost to the Detroit Tigers, 11 to 6.

From a stadium perspective, at least, things have not improved much.

“The Trop, along with the Coliseum in Oakland, are the two worst venues in Major League Baseball,” said Reichard, whose newsletter reviews ballparks nationwide.

A new Rays stadium — regardless of where it is — should be in a walkable neighborhood and have a retractable dome with better corporate suites and more business support.

In Tampa and St. Petersburg, it is a sport itself keeping track of the on-again, off-again stadium posturing: Whether taxpayers should help pay for a new stadium, and whether the team should be let out of its Tropicana Field lease, slated to expire in 2027.

Much of the decision-making rests for now with St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster, who could not be reached for comment.

The Rays are not talking, either. The team declined to comment on stadium talks or provide a geographic breakdown of season ticket holders that might illuminate just how much fan support comes from Manatee, Sarasota and Charlotte counties.

“The official position from the City of St. Petersburg has been ‘You've got an agreement, you've got to stay here through your lease which ends in 2027,' ” said St. Petersburg city councilman Charlie Gerdes.

“My fear is that while we may be able to enforce them staying until 2027, I want them to be here in 2067 and 2087,” Gerdes added. “And I am just afraid our position of enforcing the current agreement is going to backfire in the long run.”

For his part, Reichard believes the stadium issue could end up in court, if the Rays decide to break their lease on the grounds that The Trop is a sub-par stadium.

“It would be an interesting legal battle,” Reichard said.

'A transient state'

Nearly everyone involved acknowledges that it is possible that the Rays' attendance problems might not be the fault of Tropicana Field.

It might be that Major League Baseball just does not spark enough interest in Florida, with its tropical summer weather and majority of transplanted residents who follow other teams.

“Warmer weather climates, without a longer-term history of commitment to baseball and a team, are always more challenging markets for MLB,” said Rosentraub, the University of Michigan sports management professor.

The Rays draw the most fans when their opponents are popular northern teams, like the Boston Red Sox, the Chicago Cubs or the Yankees.

That is the line the owner of Norma Jean's Sports Bar & Grill, in Venice, takes as well when buying thousands of dollars worth of Trop tickets for annual bus trips to the stadium.

“Their attendance is phenomenal,” Lucibello said. “It's made up of people who have lived there all their lives. Down here, we don't have that. Florida is just such a transient state.”

Others cite the lack of amenities around the stadium as the reason for the lack of attendance.

“The stadium, it's OK,” said Sarasota's Michael Bragg, who attends games at The Trop at least once or twice each summer with his 13-year old son, Joshua. “When the game is over, though, there is nothing to do.”

Among the most mentioned sites for a new stadium is a 17.5-acre tract known as Carillon, west of Interstate 275 at Ulmerton Road.

But Grant Thrall, a site selection consultant and a fellow at the University of Florida's Miller Center for Retail Education and Research, says that would be a mistake.

“If a community wants to get the biggest bang for the buck, they should build a stadium in a place where there has already been a viable retail base,” Thrall said.

Reichard, the Ballpark Digest publisher, echoed those sentiments: “That plan is essentially putting a ballpark in a suburban business park.”

More workable, in Reichard's view, is a proposal to use the Al Lang Stadium site on the St. Petersburg waterfront, formerly the Rays' spring training home.

He also favors a design similar to the Marlins' stadium, in Miami, which debuted in 2012.

But that would require taxpayer funding of $400 million — even if the Rays contributed $150 million.

Still, the investment can pay off. Reichard points to stadiums in Denver, Minneapolis and San Diego that have delivered economic development home runs and scored in improving urban landscapes.

In the case of San Diego, he said, the city invested $301 million in Petco Park, home of the Padres.

“It's netted the city $350 million in new tax revenue,” said Reichard.

A straight economic analysis may not show a similar positive return in Tampa-St. Petersburg, but that may be beside the point, Thrall notes. To him, having a big-league baseball team is important if an area hopes to keep growing.

“That is how we learn our geography today,” Thrall said.

Just as the Rays (not to mention the Republican National Convention) have put “Tampa Bay” on the nation's mental map, they have also prompted Port Charlotte, 80 miles to the south, to resonate with visitors thanks to it serving as the team's spring training home.

“If you don't know anything about us, you might go right past us on I-75,” said Lorah Steiner, director of the Charlotte Harbor Visitor & Convention Bureau.

“So having people come to spring training brings them off I-75, and right into the heart of our destination.”

<p>Ever since the Tampa Bay Rays made it to the World Series in 2008, they have been admired as one of professional baseball's best teams — quite an achievement for a low-salary club that for years occupied the basement of their division. </p><p>But no matter how many games the Rays win, they just cannot seem to translate their on-field prowess into love at the turnstiles.</p><p>Case in point: When the Rays face off against the Baltimore Orioles in their season-opener at Tropicana Field on Tuesday, it is likely that the St. Petersburg stadium — the team's home for the past 15 years and one named for Bradenton's Tropicana Products Inc. — will be packed with fans.</p><p>But if history is any guide, by the time the ever-popular New York Yankees end their swing into the Trop on April 24 — and all the Joe Maddon gnomes are given away as a promotion — Rays' attendance will slide like a baserunner attempting a suicide squeeze.</p><p>It is not a tough prediction to make.</p><p>The Rays, which expanded a relationship with Southwest Florida by moving spring training to Charlotte County five years ago, came in dead last in Major League Baseball ticket sales in 2012.</p><p>To boost attendance, team owner Stuart Sternberg contends that the Rays need a new stadium — and likely a new location.</p><p>But new digs, like the retractable-dome stadium that is now home to the Miami Marlins, would cost around $550 million. The Rays have stated they would be willing to contribute $150 million for the right site. </p><p>If or when a stadium shift occurs, it could have widespread ramifications for Southwest Florida Rays' fans, who would likely have to travel farther north on Interstate 75 to see the sort-of hometown team play.</p><p>The stadium debate may soon come to a head because <!---->Tropicana Field construction bonds are set to be paid off by 2015. When that happens, it will free up millions of dollars annually in Pinellas County bed taxes for other projects, including a proposed $160 million home for the Clearwater Marine Aquarium.</p><p>“There's going to be a whole line of open palms for that money,” said Kevin Reichard, publisher of Ballpark Digest, a Madison, Wis.-based website founded in 2002.</p><p>As the debate rages to the north, however, even local die-hard fans acknowledge the need for a team move.</p><p>Randy Etzkorn, owner of the Venice Avenue Creamery in downtown Venice, manages to get to more than of half of the Rays' 81 home games at The Trop each year. </p><p>“Their location, even though I like it, I think they rank last in the majors in terms of how many people live within a 30-minute drive to the stadium,” Etzkorn said. “So they are the least accessible of any major league team.”</p><p>Reichard and others maintain, meanwhile, that a better-located ballpark would generate enough tax revenue to make the public investment feasible.</p><p>“There are many factors that challenge the leadership of the Rays and the region,” said Mark Rosentraub, professor of sports management at the University of Michigan. “What is clear, however, is that without a new facility incorporated into an urban plan that attracts people to a destination site, attendance levels will not improve.”</p><p><b>Deadline looms</b></p><p>Tropicana Field was built — speculatively — to house a baseball team by a coalition of local governments using the “Field of Dreams” theory: If you build it, they will come. </p><p>The indoor stadium opened in 1990 as the Florida Suncoast Dome. It sat empty for five years, until Major League Baseball executed a long-awaited expansion plan.</p><p>In 1996, Tropicana — contemplating a break from its then-owner Seagram Co. to become a standalone company — stepped forward with a purported $46 million to rename the domed stadium Tropicana Field.</p><p>The first game at Tropicana Field — the team was known as the Devil Rays at the time — occurred in March 1998. In an inauspicious debut, the team lost to the Detroit Tigers, 11 to 6.</p><p>From a stadium perspective, at least, things have not improved much.</p><p>“The Trop, along with the Coliseum in Oakland, are the two worst venues in Major League Baseball,” said Reichard, whose newsletter reviews ballparks nationwide.</p><p>A new Rays stadium — regardless of where it is — should be in a walkable neighborhood and have a retractable dome with better corporate suites and more business support.</p><p>In Tampa and St. Petersburg, it is a sport itself keeping track of the on-again, off-again stadium posturing: Whether taxpayers should help pay for a new stadium, and whether the team should be let out of its Tropicana Field lease, slated to expire in 2027.</p><p>Much of the decision-making rests for now with St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster, who could not be reached for comment.</p><p>The Rays are not talking, either. The team declined to comment on stadium talks or provide a geographic breakdown of season ticket holders that might illuminate just how much fan support comes from Manatee, Sarasota and Charlotte counties.</p><p>“The official position from the City of St. Petersburg has been 'You've got an agreement, you've got to stay here through your lease which ends in 2027,' ” said St. Petersburg city councilman Charlie Gerdes. </p><p>“My fear is that while we may be able to enforce them staying until 2027, I want them to be here in 2067 and 2087,” Gerdes added. “And I am just afraid our position of enforcing the current agreement is going to backfire in the long run.”</p><p>For his part, Reichard believes the stadium issue could end up in court, if the Rays decide to break their lease on the grounds that The Trop is a sub-par stadium.</p><p>“It would be an interesting legal battle,” Reichard said.</p><p><b>'A transient state'</b></p><p>Nearly everyone involved acknowledges that it is possible that the Rays' attendance problems might not be the fault of Tropicana Field. </p><p>It might be that Major League Baseball just does not spark enough interest in Florida, with its tropical summer weather and majority of transplanted residents who follow other teams.</p><p>“Warmer weather climates, without a longer-term history of commitment to baseball and a team, are always more challenging markets for MLB,” said Rosentraub, the University of Michigan sports management professor.</p><p>The Rays draw the most fans when their opponents are popular northern teams, like the Boston Red Sox, the Chicago Cubs or the Yankees.</p><p>That is the line the owner of Norma Jean's Sports Bar & Grill, in Venice, takes as well when buying thousands of dollars worth of Trop tickets for annual bus trips to the stadium.</p><p>“We will definitely do Yankees, Red Sox, Orioles,” said owner Barry Lucibello.</p><p>“Their attendance is phenomenal,” Lucibello said. “It's made up of people who have lived there all their lives. Down here, we don't have that. Florida is just such a transient state.”</p><p>Others cite the lack of amenities around the stadium as the reason for the lack of attendance.</p><p>“The stadium, it's OK,” said Sarasota's Michael Bragg, who attends games at The Trop at least once or twice each summer with his 13-year old son, Joshua. “When the game is over, though, there is nothing to do.”</p><p>Among the most mentioned sites for a new stadium is a 17.5-acre tract known as Carillon, west of Interstate 275 at Ulmerton Road.</p><p>But Grant Thrall, a site selection consultant and a fellow at the University of Florida's Miller Center for Retail Education and Research, says that would be a mistake.</p><p>“If a community wants to get the biggest bang for the buck, they should build a stadium in a place where there has already been a viable retail base,” Thrall said.</p><p>Reichard, the Ballpark Digest publisher, echoed those sentiments: “That plan is essentially putting a ballpark in a suburban business park.”</p><p>More workable, in Reichard's view, is a proposal to use the Al Lang Stadium site on the St. Petersburg waterfront, formerly the Rays' spring training home.</p><p>He also favors a design similar to the Marlins' stadium, in Miami, which debuted in 2012.</p><p>But that would require taxpayer funding of $400 million — even if the Rays contributed $150 million.</p><p>Still, the investment can pay off. Reichard points to stadiums in Denver, Minneapolis and San Diego that have delivered economic development home runs and scored in improving urban landscapes.</p><p>In the case of San Diego, he said, the city invested $301 million in Petco Park, home of the Padres.</p><p>“It's netted the city $350 million in new tax revenue,” said Reichard.</p><p>A straight economic analysis may not show a similar positive return in Tampa-St. Petersburg, but that may be beside the point, Thrall notes. To him, having a big-league baseball team is important if an area hopes to keep growing.</p><p>“That is how we learn our geography today,” Thrall said.</p><p>Just as the Rays (not to mention the Republican National Convention) have put “Tampa Bay” on the nation's mental map, they have also prompted Port Charlotte, 80 miles to the south, to resonate with visitors thanks to it serving as the team's spring training home.</p><p>“If you don't know anything about us, you might go right past us on I-75,” said Lorah Steiner, director of the Charlotte Harbor Visitor & Convention Bureau.</p><p>“So having people come to spring training brings them off I-75, and right into the heart of our destination.”</p>